Talk:Booker T. Washington

Why does the Booker T. Washington page have the "Conservatism in the United States" sidebar?

Why does the Booker T. Washington page have the "Conservatism in the United States" sidebar? That doesn't make sense. Is this an attempt by a right wing editor to co-opt his legacy? The edit was made in June 2023. 2600:1700:8530:68A0:3CA2:DBC9:5B46:B06E (talk) 11:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Neither in the article nor anywhere else that I have seen is there anything justifying this classification. Checking the editing history, I see that thus was added to the article with tge only reason given being that "someone" (unspecified) had put Washington on some (unidentified) "conservatism list". This does not seem to be adequate justification, and since it has been contested I shall remove it. JBW (talk) 17:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

An emancipation fighter is not necessarily non-conservative in other respects or in their methods. Many prominent feminists well into the 20th century were upper-class conservatives. Washington seems to have been popular in the white establishment and in the section "Legacy", as of right now, there are many hints as to why. That does not suggest radical inclinations. So it may well be there are reliable sources out there for labelling him "conservative". 83.254.219.57 (talk) 14:25, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

See discussion on this topic at Template_talk:Conservatism_US#Booker_T._Washington. Noleander (talk) 14:40, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! 83.254.219.57 (talk) 16:06, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Section title "Tuskegee Machine"

I changed a section title from "Later Career" to "Tuskegee Machine". WP does not have an article dedicated to "Tuskegee Machine"; yet it was an important concept/organization ... so it should at least have a section named for it. Also, I think specific titles are more engaging than bland/generic titles like "Later Life". Noleander (talk) 18:31, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Booker T Washington's Father

In his book "Up from Slavery" he states "Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the near-by plantations." I know from DNA ancestry that his father was indeed from a neighboring plantation which was Benjamin N. Hatcher who is my 6th cousin 5x removed. Benjamin Hatcher was a farmer and Virginia State Senator from 1891-1894 representing Franklin County, Virginia. He was a representative of the American Baptist Publication Society. He died of a heart attack while on vacation hunting at the Sea Island Hotel in Beaufort, S.C.. Hatcher may have been the white biological father of Booker T. Washington*. There is a family story that Jane Burroughs spent some time at his place to get away from her master. Ben allegedly owned a large "tobacco factory" in town & would employ slaves. She supposedly became pregnant after leaving his place. This is explained in a book called Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift by Jacqueline M. Moore. Two records of Benjamin Hatcher being the father of colored children exist in the Virginia death records and are attached as sources. The Benjamin Hatcher in the 1860 census of Franklin County lists him as a "manufacturer," although others report him to be a blacksmith. During the 1850s, when three purported slaves were fathered, Hatcher was recently graduated from nearby Emory & Henry College. The tobacco manufacturing story seems to be corroborated (in part) by the 1860 census, a record that was not made public until long after the contemporary accounts of Ben's tobacco plant. More recent scholarship by a descendant of the Ferguson family of Hales Ford, Franklin County, Virginia have uncovered the tobacco manufacturing riddle. It was apparently begun by John Cardwell Ferguson, who married Sallie Hatcher, who died after having several children, and then Ann Burroughs later. "Following harvest and curing on neighboring plantations (including that of James Burroughs, who owned the small plantation birthplace of noted black educator, orator and university founder Booker T. Washington), the tobacco was carted loose on wagons to these nearby manufacturing facilities, where plug and chewing tobacco were manufactured. The largest of the factories and the one closest to the Burroughs Plantation was the Ferguson-Hatcher (Benjamin Hatcher, [John Cardwell] Ferguson’s partner who would later serve in the Virginia House of Delegates and a nephew of James Burroughs) factory. During the year ending June 1, 1860, this establishment processed 160,000 pounds of tobacco and shipped out 1,500 boxes of it worth $24,000, a princely sum in the mid-19th century. Performing a lot of the labor were forty slave men hired from their owners for $10 a month and four female slaves hired for half that amount." This connects Booker T. Washington with the Ferguson, Burroughs, and Hatcher families, and explains why Hatcher was his father, his step-father was a slave from the Ferguson plantation (Washington Ferguson), and his mother was Jane from the Burroughs plantation. Benjamin Hatcher would go on to prominence in politics, representing Franklin County in the Virginia House of Delegates and a nephew of James Burroughs. Jprice1000 (talk) 01:11, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Washington's facial characteristics, especially the high upper lip, strike me as Scottish. Errantios (talk) 13:52, 19 June 2026 (UTC)